New list for birds seen here begins 2010

CORPUS CHRISTI - Old birders have on their life lists almost every species of bird possible to be seen in this area. Some of us like to keep year lists to stay in practice. Kathy Griffith and I started at a reasonable 9 a.m. Jan. 1 to begin the 2010 New Year List.

We went out Ocean Drive, with the morning sun in our faces. The day was in the lower 50s, bright and sunny.

We started the list with the perfect No. 1 New Year bird, the laughing gull. The birds that followed were expected, bay-side species: 2. black-bellied plover, 3. willet, and 4. lesser scaup. Turning in at the chapel before the Naval Air Station, we picked up a few more species: what but 5. a European starling, 6. a small flock of redhead ducks.

We saw 7. ring-billed gulls, and number 8. a Forster's tern, fishing in Corpus Christi Bay. Number 9 was several pin-tail ducks, silhouetted in the water. Number 10 was so expected as to almost be over-looked, a flock of boat-tailed grackles making their morning rounds.

Traveling toward Flour Bluff, Kathy turned on Waldron Road instead of continuing out Flour Bluff Drive. We eventually located Caribbean where we found full ponds but not many birds. Number 11 was a female northern harrier, a large brown hawk, pursuing a quarry in an open field. She soon was joined by two more members of her kind, a smaller gray male and another brown female.

We decided that what they were chasing was bird number 12, a rock pigeon. Little by little we picked up more species: 13 was a house sparrow.

This species can be difficult to find as its members have recently become fewer. Number 14 is common but always welcome, a northern mockingbird. From here we added 15. sanderlings, and 16. brown pelican. Perched over a drainage ditch, Kathy spied number 17, a belted kingfisher.

Circling over our heads, we examined 18. a turkey vulture and with it we finally spotted number 19. black vulture. In another pond was number 20, a harem of northern shovelers. 21 was a solitary American coot.

An eastern phoebe, species 22, flirted from the brush, and in the mud at the pond's edge, several black-necked stilts, species 23, waded. Another wader, a spotted sandpiper, bobbed his tail nearby, making 24 birds on our list. Resting behind him was a double crested cormorant, bird 25. Also, there were a pair of mottled ducks, number 26.

From the corner of her eye, Kathy saw and we counted, a little winter jewel, a ruby crowned kinglet, number 25. Species 26 was a pair of mourning doves on the wing.

By then we had come to Rauscher Road, an often trekked, familiar way. Here we hoped to find a bird seen on a Christmas Bird Count, that would surely give class to our New Year's list. We found it too, an eastern bluebird, number 2. It was time for lunch and a short nap for me.

My new list for the new year will be continued next week, or read the full list online at caller.com.

Phyllis Yochem, a Corpus Christi resident, has studied birds in Texas since 1960.